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A! least one former USC football player has been in all but two of the previous 33 NFL Super Bowl*, F
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NEWSPAPER 0 F THE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
For Vour Information 2
Editorial Cartoon 4
Roundup 10
SComU IX
ClMnlfladi 12
Crottword Puwl# 13
THURSDAY
January 27, 2000 Vol. CXXXIX, No. 11
Top Titans: Tennessee Head Coach Jeff Fisher shined as a defensive back at USC and now guides his team to the In# show: the Super Howl.
Tha click clique: In online voting the road to u democratic
utopia or another form of diflcrimination ui the pollin' —
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Investing 101: How to make money in stocks for the 21st centuiy
Sigma Chi returns after seven years off
Greek: USC’s oldest and newest fivtemity is working to establish itself in community once again
By YVONNH NOAl
Crock Writer
Liking the ideu of u free dinner, Jon McCartie, » freshman majoring in music industry, became ucquuinted with something he hud 110 original intention of getting involved with in the first place -Upsilon Sigma ( hi, USC's oldest and now newest Greek fraternity.
Though McCartie did not plan 011 rushing Sigma Chi, he did so ulong with some friends during last week’s formal spring rush und is now hnppy with his decision. Rushees hud to go through the same applica* tion process that active members did when Sigma Chi was first brought back to campus in the fall, suid Craig Anderson, Sigma Chi’s vice-president of public relu-tions und n freshman mujoring iu cincmu-tclevision production.
"I didn’t like the attitude of some of the guys out there,” McCartie suid. “Siginu Chi had a different feel to it. They were a lot of good guys with good churacter and morals."
McCartie is one of 23 new pledges that Sigma Chi took in during its formal spring rush last week. With expanded membership und a semester under its belt, the fraternity is ready to push aheud into the spring with new events nnd more involvement in the community.
“In just five months, we’ve grown from 40 founding fathers and two nffiliates to the 65 members we now have," said Lucas Vandenberg, president of Sigma Chi and a junior majoring in communication. “And we’re still growing.”
Having spent the last semester busily readjusting on campus, Sigma Chi has several events lined up for the spring to keep itself involved. A key aspect of the fraternity is community service and two of its major events include reaching out to its philanthropy, the Children’s Miracle Network.
One of the events will sweep members off their feet as they raise money for the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, an affiliate of the Children’s Miracle Network. The dance marathon spans through the night of Feb. 25 and into the morning of Feb. 26.
"We’re planning on having motivators during the marathon to keep people dancing — obviously, the longer we dance, the more money we raise,”
I see Sigma Chi, page 3 I
Moving along. Transportation Services has added new equipment to make things flow more smoothly for USC students and employees.
Transportation betters service
Transit Additions hope to be useful and improve customer satisfaction
By NANCY RUVALCABA
Staff Writer
The department of Transportation Services on campus has taken on a more conscious and considerate role in moving USC into the 20th century.
Improvements and new additions to the department include the purchase of three new electric vehicles and fax machines and scrolling marquis that have been placed at Gates 1 and 3. All the services were in place last semester.
The trucks were bought four months ago and are used for utility work around the campus, said Brian D’Autremont, director of transportation services. The trucks “provide better, less damaging transportation means,” D’Autrcmont said.
The fax machines placed at Gates 1 and 3 are used to make reservations at the gates. This service accommodates different departments in the University and their guests.
The scrolling marquis at both of these gates is a free service provided by the Transportation Department to whomever finds a need to use them. Clubs on campus promote their events through this service.
“Many people have said they have found it useful,” said the director. Students can access the marquis service by logging onto the USC website, bring-
ing up the USC Transportation Services web page and filling out the form.
In addition to announcements, the marquis also provide drivers with traffic informution provided by the web site of the Department of Transportation of Los Angeles. The reports are accurate as of 20 seconds of their being posted 011 the marquis.
These types of services area feedback for the students and lets them know in advance about upcoming events, said Shoa Endal, an attendant at Gate 1.
Some students feel that those in charge of this project “should have given it much more careful planning," said Sergio Santoyo, a USC alumnus. This service is only directed to drivers who are leaving the campus and perhaps don’t even have time to view the marquis, he said.
By JAIVIN KARNANI
Staff Writer
Missed the NASDAQ’s latest runup? One of the main problems that students have with investing is that they don’t have the time to follow und meticulously research individual stocks. If only we hud all bought a little bit of Qualcomm, which returned a measly 1,886.7 percent in the lust year.
To have gotten in on that, you would have had to understand the basic fundamentals of their business, which is licensing CDMA technology’ for cellular phones.
The picture on Qualcomm, however, wasn’t rosy this time last year. The stock was lagging because of a licensing fight with Sweden-based Ericsson, threatening Qualcomm’s survival. Ericsson was the largest manufacturer of cellular phones
and did not want to support Qualcomm’s CDMA technology. However, last May, Ericsson and Qualcomm struck a deal, causing Qualcomm’s stock to take off. The risks, however, were also great. High-growth stocks such as Qualcomm, Sun Microsystems, Yahoo, AOL and others fueled the meteoric rise in the NASDAQ composite index by 87 percent in 1999.
Both the Dow Jones Industrial Average — a composition of 30 stocks representative of the economy — and the S&P 500 — a broad base of 500 stocks from various industries — performed well last year, racking up gains of 23 percent and 15 percent, respectively.
Volatility, however, is one key concern of many investors. The United States stock market experienred some of the most volatile trading action in recent years. This was witnessed by the number of so-called “corrections,”
defined as market index drops of around 10 percent, that occurred during the trading year. The NASDAQ experienced three such separate drops of 10 percent or more from its highs.
However, volatility in an index is limited when compared to the volatility of a particular stock. Last summer, Internet stocks saw many of stock prices cut in half. AOL fell from a split-adjusted high of $80 per share to $40 per share (it has since rebounded, but is currently 35 percent below its $95 high). Amazon.com fell from a split-adjusted high of $105 to $45 in 3 months. Losses like these are hard to stomuch.
One way to reduce volatility in a portfolio is by investing in mutual funds.
When you buy a mutual fund, you’re actually buying shares in the fund. The price of a share at any time is the fund’s Net Asset Value, or NAV.
Peter Di Teresa of the Morningstar Fundinvestor gives the following example: Put $1,000 in a fund with an NAV of $118.74, and you’ll get 8.42 shares (unlike stocks, you can own fractions of a fund share). The fund company takes your money and invests it, along with any other new investments and the money that’s already invested with the fund. These investments are the fund’s assets, which it invests by buying stocks or bonds or some of each, creating its portfolio.
What you get as an investor or shareholder is a portion of that portfolio. Regardless of how much or how little you invest, your shares will represent the portfolio’s holdings. For example, the Vanguard 500 Index fund has as it’s four largest holdings Microsoft (which comprises 4.16 percent of its portfolio), General Electric (3.28 percent), Intel
I see Money, page 2 I
A column appearing every Thursday that examines student finance